Chapter 23
She wasn’t sure who was more surprised—Don or her.
Or maybe both of them were.
After all, it wasn’t like either one of them expected a big black dog to fly through the open bathroom door. Emily wasn’t sure who the dog was targeting, but it ended up on top of Don, clawing at his face as its impact drove him back, back, back until he fell back through the shower stall and on top of Bowman’s lifeless body.
Emily stared, not quite sure what to make of what she was seeing. The dog had saved her life. Not that it’d done it on purpose, she was sure of that. Didn’t it see her? She was definitely closer to it than Don, and yet it had gone straight for her neighbor.
Why? Why did it—
Who cares! Get up! Get up right now!
She scrambled to her feet, gripping the SIG716 in her hands (Work, damn you! Why won’t you work?) the entire time, even as she slipped and slid some more on all the blood coagulating on the floor. Not just Bowman’s blood, now, but also Don’s and some of hers.
And the dog’s, too!
The animal was bleeding as Don stabbed at it with that ninja gardening hoe of his. She could hear the stomach-turning thwap-thwap! each time Don drove the blade into the animal, even as it clamped down on his left forearm. Its claws groped at her neighbor’s face, talons ripping what was left of his shirt off his body and going for the flesh underneath.
It was a big black Labrador, like the ones she’d spotted outside; then later, insider her house. One of them had come back.
…one of them had come back…
…and it wasn’t alone…
Emily spun around, the breath flooding out of her as she lifted the rifle, prepared to use it as a blunt weapon.
There were two of them, and they stood in the bedroom just beyond the bathroom. Bloodshot red eyes glared at her, that eerie calmness that seemed to emanate from their core, sending a shiver up and down her spine. They didn’t bark or growl, but their mouths opened slowly, slowly, while saliva dripped from fanged teeth.
Bloodied fanged teeth.
Not their blood. No. These animals had come back from the front gate, where they’d gotten their share of human prey.
Now they wanted more.
Her.
She didn’t have to look back to know that Don was fighting for his life against the Labrador. That one had looked bigger when it was flying through the air like some kind of heatseeking missile. Then again, maybe it was her angle—on the bathroom floor, looking up—and it wasn’t that big.
Or maybe it was, and the two she was looking at now were its children. Or younger siblings. Or—
Oh, who the hell cared? It didn’t matter one whit how these two were related to the first one. The only thing that was of any concern to her was their bloodied eyes and the fact they were standing in her path.
And she was armed with a rifle that didn’t work. She didn’t know why it didn’t work. She hadn’t had the chance to do anything to find out. Was it bad ammo? Or maybe gunk buildup near the firing pin? A trigger malfunction, possibly? It could have been a weak firing pin spring.
It could have been anything, and everything.
And right now, none of it helped her.
Still, Emily turned the rifle and pointed it at the dogs and pulled the trigger anyway.
Nothing.
Not a goddamn thing.
Fuck me, she thought as the first dog opened its mouth wider, letting out that familiar low, rising growl, just before it launched at her.
She switched up her grip on the SIG716 and swung it like a baseball bat, striking the dog in the side of the head as it was almost on top of her. She’d stumbled back at the same time to give herself more room, mindful of all the blood on the floor.
Don’t slip! Don’t slip now, or you might not be able to get back up!
She didn’t slip, thank God, and halted her backpedaling as the dog landed on the floor, then slid along the wet length until it crumpled against a wall.
Instead of waiting for it to pick itself up—there was no way one blow to the head was going to stop the damn thing—Emily took off for the second one, still standing outside the bathroom as if waiting for its turn.
She saw something that might have almost looked like surprise on the third Labrador’s face as it cocked its head slightly while watching her run toward it. She guessed it hadn’t expected her to do that.
“Good doggy! Good doggy!” she wanted to shout out, but of course didn’t. It would have been absurd to do so. Besides, she didn’t think the dog was a good doggy in the first place.
The animal started moving to intercept her when Emily swung again and caught it, like the first one, in the head. It flew to the side, letting out a startled yelp as it did so, before landing on the floor near the foot of her bed.
Emily ran for the door, her heartbeat sledgehammering against her chest. She was almost at the door when Emily gave in to curiosity and glanced back over her shoulder.
Don was still in the bathroom, on the floor. He was straddling the big Labrador while stabbing the animal repeatedly with his hoe. If he even knew she still existed, he never glanced back to find her.
A blur of black fur as the first dog she’d struck dived on Don’s back. Her neighbor let out a wild scream as he staggered to his feet and attempted to shake the animal off him, but its mouth was clamped down on his shoulder, and it refused to let go.
The third dog, already picking itself up, was turning toward her.
Bad doggy! Emily thought and almost laughed.
Almost.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she stopped and turned around, and lifted the SIG716, again as a bat, to fight it off.
Except the Labrador didn’t run at her. It stood there, blood dripping from red eyes that glared at her almost accusingly.
“What?” Emily said to it.
The animal responded by turning around, then running across the bedroom…
…and toward the bathroom, where Don was still trying to throw the second dog off him. The first one was on the floor, an unmoving black form that was as dark as it was red. It was either dead or close.
But if Don thought he’d won, he was sadly mistaken, because now he had two dogs to deal with. They might have been smaller than the first one (she was sure of that now), but it was still two against one.
Sucks to be you, Don, Emily thought as she turned and fled the bedroom.
She all but lunged through the doorless entrance and into the hallway, as if she were trying to break through an invisible forcefield. Of course, that was silly, but at the time it’d seemed like the thing to do.
Run!
Keep running!
She did, jumping over the patch of blood on the floor, just underneath the closed attic. She kept going, passing Cole’s old office to the right. The room was forever frozen in time, part Cole’s office and part baby’s room. Barnes’s body still inside, as lifeless now as the last time she’d seen it. Flies were already gathering around the contractor. How many more were downstairs circling the dead psychos?
My dream house has turned into a slaughterhouse, Emily thought as she ran.
She slowed down into a fast-walk halfway to the stairs, keeping both eyes forward and her ears open for sounds of anything coming from behind her. How long would it take Don and the dogs to kill each other? If she were lucky, they would do just that, leaving both lying dead in a pool of blood inside her bathroom.
Her bathroom.
Inside her master bedroom.
Within her dream house.
She sighed. When she agreed to retirement with Cole, this wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind: A house full of bodies and blood.
But here she was anyway, with nothing—
An elongated shadow struck the wall as its source came up the stairs.
It took half a second for Emily to decide what to do, not that she really had much of a choice. She didn’t know who was coming up, but she alrea
dy knew what was on the floor with her—two dogs and one psycho. The person coming up the stairs could be dangerous too, but it wasn’t like she had a choice.
The barrel of a gun appeared before the person holding it. The weapon began turning.
Emily ran forward before the barrel could turn completely. She aimed for the pistol with the SIG716’s buttstock but got both gun and the hand holding it. The bang! as the gun discharged accidentally, the loud gunshot easily drowning out the scream of whoever was holding it.
The gun itself flew out of the shooter’s grip and clattered to the floor.
Home run!
Well, not quite, but good enough.
Emily lunged for the gun, snatching it—a Glock—up even as its previous owner fell. Emily somehow managed to remain on her feet as she skidded forward, all the while turning to face her would-be shooter.
“Savannah?” Emily said.
The teen girl half-kneeled and half-clung to the second-to-last steps up the stairs while cradling her right arm. She was staring up at Emily, looking miserable and in pain, and more than just a little bit confused.
Emily hurried over and helped the girl up. “Are you okay? What the hell are you doing here?”
“Greg,” Savannah said.
“What about Greg?” Then, “He’s alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“He looked alive when I left him.”
“Where did you leave him?”
“The backroom.”
Emily took a quick step back up the stairs and glanced down the hallway to make sure neither the dogs nor Don were creeping up on her while she was preoccupied with the teenager. There was no one back there. Not yet, anyway. Most of the bedroom, and the entire bathroom inside it, was hidden by turns.
“Come on,” she said as she turned and headed down the stairs with Savannah.
The teen was still cradling her hurt arm. Emily had swung as hard as she could, not knowing who she was swinging at, and wouldn’t have been surprised if Savannah’s wrist was broken. The poor kid’s face was in pain, her teeth clenched like she was doing everything possible not to scream out in agony.
As they took the steps cautiously, Emily couldn’t avoid the bloody prints. Shoes and dog paws. She couldn’t remember if they’d been on the second floor, too; she’d been too busy running to look down. Savannah had managed to avoid most of the mess when she was navigating upward just minutes ago—
The dogs. The ones she’d shot earlier. There had been two of them on the stairs and a third at the bottom.
But all three were now gone.
Emily stopped and stood still for a moment, trying to decide if she was going crazy.
“What?” Savannah asked. “What is it?”
“Where are the dogs?” Emily said. “I shot three of them earlier. Where did they go?”
“Dogs?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t see any dogs. I thought I would, after what happened to Greg, but I didn’t see any when I came outside.”
Emily looked over at the teenager. “Not a single one?”
Savannah shook her head. “No. Why? Where are they?”
Maybe I am going crazy, she thought.
Of course, she knew better.
She continued down the stairs, before asking Savannah, “How’s your arm?”
“I think my wrist is broken.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s okay. I almost shot you.”
“But you didn’t.
“I almost did.”
“But you didn’t.” She stopped again in the middle of the stairs. “Stay here.”
“What?” Savannah said, suddenly alarmed.
“One second.”
“Don’t leave me!”
“I’m not. I just have to make sure.”
Emily hurried down the rest of the stairs before the teen could protest. She stopped three steps from the bottom and leaned down and around the turn to take in the first floor.
Empty.
…except for the blood in the hallway that led to the backroom. There was a lot of it, too. Way, way too much to allow her to believe that Greg could still be alive somewhere in there.
“Emily?” Savannah said from behind her. Or whispered. Maybe squeaked.
“Let’s go,” Emily said.
As the teen ran down to join her—making too much noise for Emily’s liking in the process—Emily looked toward the front door, the Glock in her hand. She’d slung the SIG716, not wanting to get rid of it just yet. If it was just a malfunction, then she could fix it later when she wasn’t in the middle of a do-or-die situation.
The front door and windows were as wide open now as they’d been when she was last down here with Greg. There were more bloody paw prints on the floor, the fresher ones coming from the driveway outside. The dead psychos lay, or in some cases draped, where she last saw them. For a moment she had visions of the dogs eating the dead, but if they were, then they hadn’t finished their meal, because the psychos looked mostly intact to her.
Mostly, anyway.
She turned and led Savannah to the rear hallway, stepping around the bodies inside it. She took a moment to observe them but couldn’t find anything that looked like teeth marks. So the dogs weren’t eating them? Then why were they attacking humans?
For that matter, why were humans attacking each other?
The kill, she thought. They’re doing it for the thrill of the kill.
Just like the humans…
She concentrated on the backroom door in front of them.
“You don’t know if Greg’s still alive?” she asked Savannah.
The teenager shook her head.
“How bad was he?” Emily asked.
“Pretty bad.”
Emily didn’t think the girl was exaggerating. After all, there was a lot of blood in the back hallway, and not all of it belonged to the dogs she’d shot or the psychos that had bled out last night.
It didn’t take long to reach the door. Emily tried the lever, but it wouldn’t budge.
Locked.
She sighed, then banged on the metal frame with her fist, praying that Greg was still alive on the other side, because if he wasn’t, then they were stuck out here with dogs, psychos, and God knew what else she still hadn’t seen yet.
Chapter 24
Greg was still alive, thank God, and he opened the door for them. Emily wasn’t entirely sure how the man was even up on his feet, because he looked like death warmed over. Or maybe it was just the dimmed lighting in the room, with only the LED lanterns to keep it from becoming completely pitch black.
No, that wasn’t it. Greg just looked terrible.
How is he still alive? she thought as she entered with Savannah in tow.
He was wearing new clothes that she recognized immediately as Cole’s. The hiking slacks and shirt were from a closet in the back of the room, both of which looked one size too small for the bigger-framed contractor. Greg had used the gauze tape from the first-aid kit to make a somewhat respectable sling for his right arm, the limb itself wrapped in a huge bundle of whatever bandage was left.
“Jesus, Greg, you look like how I feel right now,” Emily said as she pushed the door closed behind her.
The heavy steel clanked into place, and the locks spun home, the sounds of them catching like music to her ears. The door was solid and would easily keep out the dogs. It had already, if she wasn’t mistaken. Even the psychos wouldn’t be able to get through. A tank might, but as far as she knew, there wasn’t one out there right now.
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Greg said. He gave her a half-smile. Or tried to. What came out was more pain than genuine.
“What happened?”
“Dogs. They got the jump on me.” He shook his head. “Stupid. Getting picked off by friggin’ dogs.”
“You didn’t get any of them?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe ni
cked one or two, but there were too many of them at once, and…” He paused for a second. “I wasn’t sure what was happening. I mean, they’re dogs. How do I shoot dogs?”
Why not? Emily thought. I did.
She said, “Let me look at that arm.”
“It’s okay.”
“Let me look anyway.”
“Emily…”
“That wasn’t a request, Greg.”
He sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”
She led him back to the sofa, where they sat down, and Emily took a look with one of the LED lights sitting nearby. She slowly unfurled the gauze from his left arm while Savannah absently paced the room nearby, occasionally glancing over at the door.
Emily had noticed a big pile of bloody rags in the corner. That, she guessed, explained why there hadn’t been a lot of blood on the floor. Someone—likely Savannah—had taken the time to wipe them. Not all of them, probably, but under the current light conditions she’d done a good enough job that Emily couldn’t readily spot the mess.
“What happened to your nose?” Greg asked her.
Right, her nose. She’d forgotten all about that.
“Bowman came back,” she said. “He surprised me, then gave me a couple of shots as a how-you-do.”
“Who’s Bowman?”
“Troyer. His real name’s Bowman.”
“Oh. What happened to him?”
“My neighbor Don found us in the bathroom upstairs while Bowman was interrogating me about his gems.”
Emily glanced over at the duffel bags stacked on the table to her left. A couple of the felt pouches with the diamonds inside were visible among all the other stuff that, to Emily, were more valuable right now—like guns and ammo.
“Don killed Bowman,” Emily continued.
“Was he actually a deputy?” Greg asked.
“No. He was a thief who was in the police station when everything went down. He just took advantage of the opportunity.”
“So you were right.”
“I guess I was.”
“You have good intuition.”
“Or maybe I’m just naturally paranoid.”
“That must help in your old line of work.”
“It doesn’t hurt, no.”
Fall of Man | Book 2 | Homefront Page 19
